Marion Rousse, the director of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, predicts a closely fought GC contest in this year’s edition of the race, with “more suspense” than in the ongoing men’s equivalent.
Last year’s Tour de France Femmes was won by just four seconds – the closest winning margin in the entire history of the Tour de France – as Kasia Niewiadoma earned the title ahead of Demi Vollering.
Rousse is expecting a similarly close battle this time round, thanks to an “exceptional” start list.
“There isn’t really anyone missing,” she told reporters, including Cycling Weekly, at the race’s Grand Départ in Vannes on Saturday. “Between Demi Vollering, the outright favourite, Marlen Reusser [Reusser abandoned on stage one - ed], who has taken an incredible step up this year, Elisa Longo Borghini, who just won her home Grand Tour, Anna van der Breggen, Lotte Kopecky, Cédrine Kerbaol, a local Breton rider, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, I think that, well I hope, we’ll have more suspense in the women’s race than in the men’s race.”
Tadej Pogačar leads the men’s race by almost four and a half minutes going into Sunday’s 21st stage in Paris. The Slovenian, already a three-time winner, has held the yellow jersey comfortably since stage 12.
“It’s clear that last year, our situation with just four seconds separating the leaders on Alpe d’Huez was just amazing,” Rousse said. “You can’t have any better promo than this type of result. Like all race organisers, what you hope for is suspense until the end.
“I know very well that that’s not the case every year, but, of course, having many women who can race for the yellow jersey, and maybe with less of a gap than with Pogačar and his competitors, it might give people more of a desire to watch, to see the suspense to the end. We’ll only find out at the finish in Châtel.”
Saturday’s opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes was won by Visma-Lease a Bike’s Marianne Vos. The 38-year-old sprinted beyond her team-mate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in an uphill finish Plumelec.
The Frenchwoman herself was able to take third on the day, earning a handful of seconds over Niewiadoma and Vollering in her bid to become the race’s first home winner.
“It’s true that we have more female yellow jersey contenders than male at the moment,” Rousse said. “There’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot who says that, within three years, she wants to be the winner of the Tour de France Femmes. For sure, it can be said that the next Bernard Hinault will certainly be a woman.”
The nine-day Tour de France Femmes continues on Sunday with another punchy stage into Quimper. The race will then cut across the centre of France, with a summit finish on the Col de la Madeleine, and an Alpine curtain closer in Châtel on 3 August.
“I hope that the suspense will last the whole race,” said Rousse.
